I've read an awful lot of "Why Bush Won" articles the last few weeks. Democrats are too nice. Democrats are too nasty. Democrats need to be more like Republicans. Democrats need to be more like Democrats. Democrats have to look more to the future. Democrats have to remind America of their past achievements. Democrats need to define "values." Democrats need to forget about "values" and press "solutions." Democrats need to stop listening to people saying what Democrats need to do. Democrats need to — well, you get the concept. In most cases, the advice seems to me to be trying to take an election that may have been lost for a wide range of reasons and distill it down to one quick fix. (Very few seem to even mention the possibility that maybe John Kerry just failed to excite enough people to the point of convincing them to change horses.)
Here's Robert Kuttner with one of the best articles I've read on the topic of "Why Bush Won." There's a lot more that could be said but this piece struck me as casting a wide, reasonable net.